Show HN: Project Cherub – New TempleOS Fork. Early Build ISO and Future Plans
Project Cherub is a new fork of TempleOS created by Rubinosław from REParadoxy. The early build ISO has already increased the FPS rate from 30 to 120 and renamed the system. Future plans include support for 32-bit colors, SATA AHCI, NVMe, Blu-ray, video, GPU, and USB, while keeping the 640x480 screen resolution.
Background
- TempleOS was a hobby OS created by the late Terry A. Davis (1969–2018), a brilliant programmer with schizophrenia who believed God commanded him to build it. He wrote the entire system from scratch — kernel, compiler, filesystem, GUI — in a custom language called HolyC, but the OS had no networking, no memory protection (everything runs in ring 0), a locked 640×480 resolution, and aggressive religious themes. After Davis's death, it gained cult status in programming communities.
- Project Cherub is a new fork by a developer called Rubinosław (REParadoxy). The author claims to have bumped the frame rate from 30 to 120 FPS (a trivial one-line config change) and plans to add 32-bit color, SATA AHCI, NVMe, USB, GPU, and Blu-ray support — while keeping the 640×480 resolution as a tribute.
- This matters because TempleOS's ring-0 design makes adding modern hardware drivers extremely hard: one bug crashes the whole system with no protection. Most attempts to "modernize" TempleOS end up stalled. The project is in very early stages and skepticism is warranted, but it continues the tradition of Terry's work inspiring hobby OS developers.